THE DOT-COM boommay be long gone, but there are still a few tasty employee perks left at some of the Silicon Valley firms which survived that era.

Just check the aromas of the multiethnic cuisine and healthy offerings wafting from the “cafes” of the top local Internet, digital entertainment, biotech and software companies.

Indian curry, tandoori chicken and some nan bread sound good for lunch? How about Japanese noodles, a spicy Thai dish or sushi? Or a light homemade pasta entree, fresh grilled salmon or a sumptuous spinach salad complete with Gorgonzola cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and caramelized walnuts?

It’s all available — and much more — at places like Google, Oracle, Pixar and Genentech. Some of these companies even have many cafes, or cafeterias, for their employees to choose from. Frequently, they rival or surpass local restaurants for flavorful international fare with a healthy flair. The cuisine is usually subsidized by these companies and often sells for 20 percent or so below market value.

At high-flying Google, it’s free.

The campus menu is aimed at a diverse technology-based work force around the Bay Area that’s sophisticated about food. These premier industry workers are pampered in the corporate kitchen to make them happy, healthy and energized so they can hone that new software program, perfect a new drug or tweak a new movie or video game.

“Our employees come from all over the world and so do our customers,” said Kim Pineda, a spokeswoman at Redwood Shores-based Oracle. “They love different ethnic food, and they’re used to the good stuff.”

Oracle employees have six cafes to choose from, all with healthy objectives. With a large population of Indian and other Asian workers on campus, the Indian, Vietnamese, Thai and Middle Eastern dishes are popular and authentic.

Anyone for sake-steamed clams and mussels or lamb with rice pilaf? There’s a taqueria, too. But most employees are also mindful of staying healthy and want the freshest, organic food. There’s a big selection of fresh salmon and other fish as well as grilled meats and plenty of vegetarian cuisine.

“The food is really decent andthere’s a lot of variety,” Srini Raman, an Oracle software developer from Fremont, said while ordering a tandoori chicken special. “It takes half an hour to drive out, park and find a restaurant, so I’m here a lot.”

Mikael Fransson, a software developer who came to Oracle from Sweden four years ago, likes Oracle’s food better than many local restaurants.

“I prefer the Indian and Asian food,” said Fransson of Palo Alto. “It’s also less expensive than other lunch restaurants.”

Fransson often eats in the 600 Building of Oracle’s gleaming glass-cylinder office tower campus. The building houses a somewhat exotic cafe with brightly colored upholstered chairs and modern mosaic art on the walls. It’s open to the public, too.

As part of Oracle’s health theme, much of the food has “in balance” tags on it, meaning there’s a healthy balance of grains, vegetables, protein and fat. The fish is wild, not farm raised.

“We make it all from scratch,” said Ramin Khonsari, a chef from Bon Appetit, which contracts food service at Oracle’s cafeterias. “We don’t even have walk-in freezers, so it has to be fresh.”

Khonsari stressed that the meats are “not pumped with toxins.”

Labor and human resources observers say companies want to keep people on campus so they can remain healthy, relaxed and lucid to do a better job.

“These workers are very intense about what they are doing, and lavish, low-calorie lunches help them out,” said Harley Shaiken, a labor professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “The cuisine is meant to create a very positive atmosphere.”

American corporations pioneered corporate perks, and “there’s no shortage of them,” Shaiken said. “This is the top of the food chain when you’re talking tandoori chicken for lunch.”

Down the highway at Google in Mountain View, there’s an on-site nutritionist who works with the chefs.

Food at Google is fresh, colorful, creative and bursting with imaginative and authentic flavors. There’s lots of Indian and other Asian cuisine choices. And it’s all free for employees.

Google has four “cafes” on campus, some small and quaint and some that resemble traditional cafeterias with better food. There are plans for eight more restaurant-style cafes that are smaller and more intimate.

The No-name Cafe is the place for health nuts. There’s plenty of soups and organic ingredients for salads — “make your own” or ready-made style. The No-name is about low calories, low fat and organic products.

There’s also an ample supply of sparkling waters and juices, many from Italy, France and other countries.

“The No-name Cafe is my favorite,” said Eve Galazin, a recruiter in human resources who never leaves the campus for lunch. “It’s healthy, clean and organic, and I’m happily full when I’m finished. Actually, I’m energized and recharged, and there’s a great variety.”

While dining on a fresh salad with exotic miniature fruits and nuts, workers can drink coconut milk from the shell with a big straw and finish off with a desert of coffee-crusted Kona macadamia nuts.

Even the forks and knives are made of corn — biodegradable in 40 days.

Chef Joseph L. DeSimone calls Google a “fantasy land for chefs.”

“We do a lot of experimenting and prepare stuff from all over the world from India to Africa and lots of Asian countries,” DeSimone said.

John Dickman, Google’s food service manager, looks for chefs who can combine fine dining experience with large volumes.

“We’re looking to be as green as possible while using a simplistic approach,” said Dickman, who added that the meats contain no nitrates and the produce is nearly 100 percent organic. “We provide the amenities necessary so the engineers can focus on their core stuff and not have to disrupt their lifestyles.”

“Everything’s really good here,” said Darin Tay, a Canadian engineering intern at Google who likes to eat outside near the sand volleyball court where workers play at lunch and on their breaks.

Stanford University economics professor Paul Oyer said having employees eating together can be a huge benefit to the company.

“They’re likely to sit with co-workers and develop a workplace network,” Oyer said. “They’ll probably talk some about Google, and that’s a useful thing to the company.”

Up Highway 101, at biotech pioneer Genentech in South San Francisco, the main cafeteria overlooks the Bay and has seats indoors and outdoors.

Much of the food is made to order. Pan-Asian food is a big favorite, so there’s a variety of Thai and Vietnamese food, including other Asian dishes such as Singapore noodles and Shanghai tacos. The sauces and vegetables can be substituted. Just ask the chefs, who prepare a lot of the food in sizzling sauce pans exhibition style.

At Genentech, there are plenty of exotic international salads, which often feature unusual ethnic twists. Several different soups are cooked daily and there are multiple salad bars. There’s lots of fresh vegetables and fruits around, and healthy drinks ranging from fresh-squeezed orange juice to fruity natural waters.

“The food is tasty and gives me a lot of energy, and the prices are very good,” said Alex Agan of Redwood City, who’s training for a packaging position at Genentech. Agan likes the salad bars and huge variety of dressings. He also likes the oven-baked pizza and a good burger once in a while. At Genentech, the burger costs $4 but could fetch $8 elsewhere because it’s big, juicy and done with a gourmet flair.

For those early morning or late afternoon lifts, there’s an espresso machine on every floor at Genentech and a variety of teas. That’s all free.

Many of the workers at Genentech and other leading tech firms are so highly coveted that companies don’t mind subsidizing the kitchen to help pamper them and keep them on board.

“There’s a publicity value in this,” Oyer said. “They want to get the word out to knowledgeable scientists and engineers that it’s a great place to work.” Oyer noted that it’s all part of an overall package being offered to workers.

“We offer some of the best benefits in the industry,” said Doug Free, spokesman at Microsoft in Mountain View, where the software giant employs 1,500 people. “It’s part of the contract to offer good food as well as good health care. We want to retain our workers.”

Creative salads, grilled-salmon BLTs, sushi and veggie burgers are favorites, along with the always-popular Asian cuisines. There are also many cuts of fish and meats and several pots of soup brewing.

The chefs at these cafes could work the line in many top-flight eateries, and many already have.

Osvaldo Tomatis, the chef at Pixar in Emeryville, is a native of Italy and former executive chef at Il Fornaio. He tries to create the food presentation of a fine restaurant for Pixar employees, who are constantly brainstorming on the latest movie. They could also use some comfort food amid the recent merger with Disney.

Tomatis likes to make his own pasta from scratch when he can and serves Italian favorites such as polenta and risotto.

Italian pastas are a big favorite at Pixar.

“We try to get everything as fresh as possible,” Tomatis said. “We get it locally grown if we can.” He even uses special flour in his pizza to make the pies healthier, lighter and tastier.

Pixar Chief Executive Steve Jobs always wanted a wood-burning pizza oven. So he had one installed at Pixar, and that’s what Tomatis uses.

Jobs is also a vegan, so the company takes its vegetarian dishes very seriously.

“It’s not a matter of just ‘is it fresh and organic?'” said Randy Nelson, dean of Pixar University, a broad-based school for workers here. “It’s ‘do you want eggs and dairy products with that?'” Vegans don’t eat dairy products.

Nelson developed heart disease recently and has had no trouble eating healthy at Pixar. At first he was concerned that, at work, he couldn’t eat the strict diet his doctor recommended.

“I eat brown rice and vegetables whenever I want,” he said. “The company is watching out for our health.” There is also sushi several times a week and fresh fish and salads, too.

Then again, for a movie maker that creates children’s films like “Toy Story” and “Finding Nemo,” there’s also playful food.

Like the cereal bar, a hot employee gathering spot in the morning. The bar includes everything from Cocoa Puffs and Froot Loops to Frosted Flakes and granola. Of course, there’s 1 percent milk, 2 percent milk, regular milk and a couple of different kinds of soy milk to put on the cereal. The milks are all stacked high in a refrigerator at the end of the bar.

At Electronic Arts in Redwood City, the cafe overlooks a sprawling grass field once used to stage a football game with NFL players such as Ray Lewis and Jeremy Newberry to promote a video game called “NFL Street.”

You might expect some of the testosterone-amped and wild-looking gamers employed at the world’s largest video game company to go straight for the burgers and fries, carved pork, or make-your-own pizza.

Well, many of them do. Because that fare is renowned on campus, EA spokeswoman Trudy Muller said.

But EA takes no back seat to the healthiest corporate cafeterias of Silicon Valley.

There’s also a long salad bar and several healthy soups served daily. Lots of multiethnic options are available. The prices are all 20 percent under market value.

Louis Leon, EA’s happy chef, is a favorite with workers. He has a strong restaurant background with stints at Left at Albuquerque, Gordon Biersch and the organic specialty restaurant Flea Street Cafe in Menlo Park.

“The clientele is young and energetic, and when I get creative they think it’s great,” Leon said. He listens to the workers, gets a feel for what they like and gives it to them with the freshest ingredients he can find.

“I like to get produce that’s in season,” Leon said.

“There’s plenty of good vegetable dishes and salad, and that’s what I like,” said Nyla Comisso, a marketing executive at EA. “I hate to shop for vegetables and if I didn’t work here, I wouldn’t get to eat this well.”

Comisso looks at the daily menu online at her desk and decides what she wants. She frequently eats salads, such as the sumptuous spinach salad with goat cheese, caramelized walnuts, mushrooms and a special dressing. That’s under $5 and would go for $8 or more in a restaurant and likely wouldn’t be as good.

“We’re really busy here, and having this so convenient and incredibly healthy is great,” Comisso said.